The Border Security Force’s jurisdiction has been extended in three states and reduced in Gujarat, all up to 50 km within the border. What powers does BSF enjoy? Why was the revision made, and why are Punjab and Bengal opposing it?
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has extended the jurisdiction of the Border Security Force (BSF) up to 50 km inside the international borders in Punjab, West Bengal and Assam. The BSF’s powers — which include arrest, search and seizure — were limited to up to 15 km in these states. At the same time, the Ministry has reduced BSF’s area of operation in Gujarat from 80 km from the border, to 50 km.
The move, announced by a gazette notification on Monday, has been criticised by the Punjab and West Bengal governments, which have called it an attack on the federal structure and an attempt to curtail the rights of the state police.
It amends the schedule of an earlier notification of July 3, 2014 in terms of the BSF’s jurisdiction, which it outlines as: “the whole of the area comprised in the States of Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya and Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh and so much of the area comprised within a belt of fifty kilometres in the States of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab, West Bengal and Assam, running along the borders of India”.
